>> pelley: that there's a warning today of sharply higher taxes and worse unless washington comes up with a budget deal. do you think the united states would go back into recession? the head of the international monetary fund paints a dark picture. wyatt andrews and anthony mason report on today's threats to the recover. for the first time we'll take you inside this secret u.s. facility. bob orr shows us where they track terror suspects worldwide. and jim axelrod with a young soccer player who's replaced a missing leg with gallantry on the field. >> i just want to be seen as an equal. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening, and we could add happy new year,

because this is the first day of the federal government's new fiscal year. but there's not much to celebrate because the nation is headed toward what's being called the fiscal cliff and there are dire new warnings today about what will happen to american families unless congress and the president reach a budget deal by december 31. that is the day that a series of tax cuts will expire and big cuts in federal spend will take hold. tax experts said today 90% of american families are facing what they call unprecedented tax increases. how much? wyatt andrews is in washington tonight. wyat >> reporter: scott, according to the non-partisan tax policy center, the united states is now on the threshold of one of the largest tax increases in history-- a tax hike that could average $3,500 for every american household. without action by congress, the

report says, taxes will go up next year by 20%-- $536 billion overall and will hit americans at every income level, including those living below the poverty line. for a middle-income family making $40,000 a year, taxes will go up by $2,000. the increases are so large because the nation's biggest tax cuts all expire three months from now on new year's day. they include the bush-era federal income tax cuts, the payroll tax cut that lowered social security and medicare taxes, and several remaining stimulus tax cuts all go away january 1 unless congress and the president reach a deal on the budget. many economists are concerned that a tax increase of that size could shock the economy and trigger a recession by reducing the cash that taxpayers have to spend. but scott, congress and the president now have a firm price tag on what it costs if they don't reach a budget deal after the election. >> pelley: wyatt, thank you, the

u.s. economy is also being hurt by what's happening far beyond washington, all the way across the atlantic. senior business correspondent anthony mason has more on that. >> reporter: in spain this weekend, police clashed with protesters angry over austerity measures the government's been forced to implement. a quarter of the work force in spain can't find jobs and the unemployment rate in the 17-nation euro zone has now hit a record high-- 11.4%. for three straight quarters, the european economy has been shrinking and federal reserve chairman ben bernanke said today america is feeling the impact. >> it has been a problem for the u.s. economy. we have seen head winds coming from slowing trade. >> reporter: if you combine imports and exports, the european union is our biggest trading partner. >> so we have a very strong interest in europe solving its problems. >> reporter: but the problem

won't be solved quickly says ian brehmer who heads the eurasia group, a global research firm. what brings the europeans back to growth? no one started to address that issue. it's like saying what's going to bring the united states back to a healthy and manageable deficit. >> reporter: and the more imminent threat to the economy may be the so-called fiscal cliff. the ratings agency fitch has said uncertainty about u.s. fiscal policy is the single-biggest near-term threat to the global recovery. >> winston churchill once said that the americans always do the right thing but only after extinguishing every other possibility. that is precisely what the americans are doing here. >> reporter: bremmer believes washington won't go over that cliff, but fixing europe could take years. spain reportedly could request a euro zone bailout as early as next weekend. >> pelley: anthony, thanks very much. those are some of the same questions we put together to one of the most powerful women in the world economy. christine legarde is managing director of the international

monetary fund. the i.m.f. is essentially a massive bank set up after world war ii with-to-help countries with international trade. lagarde was a french finance minister. she took over the i.m.f. last summer. at her headquarters in washington today, we asked her why the world economy has been slowing for the last several months. >> you have several factors. i would name as the first one the global uncertainty as to how and when the european crisis will be addressed and resolved. the second one is how and when the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling will be addressed and what other long-term anchoring factor for the economic policies developed in, say, the united states and japan. those are factors of uncertainty that really prevent people from making the investment decisions, the hiring decisions, the foreign direct investment

decisions that would otherwise help growth the world over. >> pelley: if we cross the fiscal cliff, we go over the edge, do you think the united states would go back into recession? >> if it was not addressed very shortly, yes. >> pelley: and why are yo so certain of that? >> well, you just look at the numbers. that would entail a growth contraction of about 2% in a given year. so if you assume that the u.s. economy forecast growth next year is 2%, 2% minus 2% equals zero. you are pretty much at the recession stage. >> pelley: there are about 12.5 million americans who lost their jobs in the great recession. we have seen our economy in recession or stumbling along since late 2007. and a lot of americans just want to know when does this end. >> well, i would say that there is good news lurking out there.

and in particular the fact that the housing market is picking up is, in our view, a clear sign that the situation is improving. when you see that the financial institutions have been clearly strengthened, restructured and made a little bit safer and that the housing market is picking up that's not bad. >> pelley: not bad, but next week the i.m.f. is expected to announce that it's lowering its forecast for world growth to 3% this year. two days before the first presidential debate a new poll by the "washington post" finds the race still very tight nationwide with president obama leading mitt romney by two points, 49% to 47%. but in two of the biggest swing states, the states that will decide the election, the president has a bigger lead. in florida, a quinnipiac university/cbs news/"new york times" poll has the president ahead by nine points, 53% to

44%. in ohio he leads governor romney by ten points, 53% to 43%. john dickerson is our cbs news political director. john, some republicans are complaining these polls aren't painting an accurate picture. do they have a case? >> reporter: well, they have a case when they remind us that polls are a snapshot in time and that things can change. really what we should look at in polls is the trends and how things are moving over time, the currents. and right now those favor barack obama. the polls are really more like a painting than they are a digital photograph. one of the other complaints is that pollsters are talking to too many democrats. in 2004 democrats said pollsters were talking to too many republicans. it's a standard complaint for the party that the currents are moving against. >> pelley: john, why is there such a difference between the national poll which is essentially a tie and the poll in the battleground states? >> well, they're really polls of

two different countries. the battleground states peoples v seen millions of dollars of ads, many negative. they've gotten visits on their doorstep from campaign volunteers. they've gotten mail, visits from the candidates. in the rest of the country the polling is made up of states where none of that is going on. there's no evidence that the polls in the battleground states benefit one party or the other. in 2008, the mccain campaign was saying "look at the battleground state polls, pay no attention to the national polls." today, scott, the romney campaign is making the exact opposite case. >> pelley: john, thank you very much. a suicide bomber was waiting this morning when a joint u.s./afghan patrol entered a marketplace in eastern afghanistan. he rammed a motorcycle packed with explosives into the group. at least 14 people were killed, including three americans and their afghan translator. the taliban claimed responsibility. the afghan war began 11 years ago this weekend in response, of course, to the 9/11 terror attacks. and in all those years the u.s.

has been building a global counterterrorism force. but, until tonight, no camera has ever been inside one secret facility outside washington. it's called the terrorist screening center. everyone there has a top secret clearance and it took bob orr months to gain access and bring us this story. >> reporter: the terrorist screening center is home to the nation's top-secret information on suspected terrorists. it's so sensitive we were asked not to record any of the sounds inside this room. and we agreed to identify only director tim healy, a veteran f.b.i. agent who overseas the terrorist watch list of 520,000 names. >> that could be a facilitator, it could be a bomber, it could be a bomb maker, it could be anything. it's anybody corrected to terrorism. >> reporter: this clearing house of terrorist information is used everyday by t.s.a. officers, border agents and state, local, and federal law enforcements.

>> if you're speeding, you get pulled over, they're query that name. and if they're encountering a known or suspected terrorist it will pop up and say "call the terrorist screening center." >> reporter: how often do these encounters happen? >> we're averaging about 55 encounters with known or suspected terrorists every single day. >> reporter: in most cases, the encounters do not produce arrest but provide additional intelligence. >> location of where the guy is going, what he's doing, additional associates that the subject is hanging around. >> reporter: names are frequently added and subtracted, always in secret. healy also overseas the even more critical no-fly list. there are 20,000 people on the no-fly list. about 700 of them are americans. so there are people who live in this country who you have enough concerns about they can't fly? >> yes. >> reporter: the databases are not perfect. some innocent people have been kept off airplanes by mistake. and one person who never made

the no fly list was umar farouk abdulmutallab who tried to blow up an airliner over detroit in 2009. to keep his staff focused, around the complex healy has displayed remnants from terror strikes, pieces from the u.s.s. "cole," the oklahoma city federal building, and the world trade center. there's an antenna from the north tower, a steel beam bent by the impact of one of the hijacked planes, and this support section from the building's base. this is an iconic piece, instantly recognizable to anyone who's seen the world trade center picture. >> sure. >> reporter: and that was your point here. you wanted this to be a stark in-your-face reminder. >> i said i want it smack dab in the middle of where the folks come in so every single day they walk by this particular piece. >> reporter: for healy, fail injury not an option. success here is measured by negatives-- attacks that don't happen. bob orr, cbs news, washington.

>> pelley: two airliners had to turn around when passenger seats came loose. and now you see her, now you don't. the latest ikea catalog when the "cbs evening news" continues.alr [ female announcer ] if you have rheumatoid arthritis, can you start the day the way you want? can orencia help? could your "i want" become "i can"? talk to your doctor. orencia reduces many ra symptoms like pain, morning stiffness and progression of joint damage. it's helped new ra patients and those not helped enough by other treatments. do not take orencia with another biologic medicine for ra due to an increased risk of serious infection. serious side effects can occur including fatal infections. cases of lymphoma and lung cancer have been reported. tell your doctor if you are prone to or have any infection like an open sore or the flu or a history of copd, a chronic lung disease. orencia may worsen your copd. [ male announcer ] now learn about a program committed to you and copay assistance that can

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we asked anna we werer to look into this. >> reporter: so this is everything you have to take? >> yes. >> reporter: 84-year-old phil eckloff suffers from congestive heart failure and diabetes and wound up in the hospital twice this year. he left a laundry list of follow-up instructions and medications. so you have to deal with all this stuff. this is a lot of-- a lot of medications. a lot to remember. >> yeah, it is. >> reporter: eckloff is fortunate. he has a home health care worker to help him. what do you think it would be like for you if you had to keep up with all this by yourself? >> if you don't take a service like this you'll end up become in the hospital. and that's true. >> reporter: federal officials are concerned that many medicare patients fail to get the necessary follow-up care and end up being readmitted to the hospital, often in the same month. so the government is now penalizing hospitals for excessive readmissions in three areas: patients recovering from

heart failure, heart attacks, or pneumonia. in a problem hospital, if a leased patient comes back within 30 days, there's a 1% penalty. 2,200 hospitals-- roughly two-thirds of those receiving medicare-- will forfeit money. up to 1% of a hospital's medicare reimbursement. for example, if a hospital submits a $100,000 bill to medicare, the penalty would reduce the reimbursement to $99,000. in all, the penalized hospitals will forfeit about $290 million in medicare funds over the next year. steven love heads the dallas/fort worth hospital council. he says the penalties are unfair to hospitals that serve primarily low-income populations. >> hospitals that treat people that are in low-income areas in many cases don't have the primary care providers they need in their communities. they may not have the pharmacies they need. and so to coordinate that care

outside of the hospital is going to be very difficult. >> reporter: scott, not all hospitals are failing to meet these guidelines and some hospital executive wes spoke to say the initiative is not all bad. in fact, some of those hospitals are developing their own programs to keep people healthier once they do get home and out of the hospital. >> pelley: anna, thanks very much. what's causing the seats to come loose on some american airlines jets? that's next. before copd... i took my son fishing every year. we had a great spot, not easy to find, but worth it. but with copd making it hard to breathe, i thought those days might be over. so my doctor prescribed symbicort. it helps significantly improve my lung function starting within five minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms.

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>> pelley: two american airlines 757s had to make emergency landings for an unusual reason: some of the seats came loose. it happened saturday on a flight from boston to miami when a row of seats separated from the floor. this is the sound of the pilot talking to a dispatcher. >> got an unusual one for you. during climbout rows of passenger seats, row 12 d, e and, if came out of the floor. passengers are unable to sit in that seat. we're thinking about going to kennedy to get the four seats reattached to the aircraft, over. >> okay, that sounds like a good idea to me. >> pelley: well, it happened again today on a new york-to-miami flight. american has grounded eight more 757s so they can be inspected. the seating on those jets was reconfigured recently. ikea apologized today.

the company sells furniture that requires assembly, but it left an important component out of its catalog distributed in saudi arabia-- women. images of women were digitally removed out of deference to the sensitivitys of the strict muslim kingdom. women, you may remember, aren't even allowed to drive in saudi arabia. we're not sure whether they're allowed to use wrenches. ikea now says it regrets removing women from the catalog. a high school senior has become an internet sensation and an inspiration. you'll meet him next. that was me... the day i learned i had to start insulin for my type 2 diabetes. me... thinking my only option was the vial and syringe dad used. and me... discovering once-daily levemir® flexpen. flexpen® is prefilled.

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>> pelley: there's a sports video that we've been watching over and over again here in the newsroom. its star isn't a pro, in fact, he's 18 and plays high school soccer. jim axelrod has his amazing story. >> reporter: it's not hard to pick out nico calabria, joging with his varsity soccer teammates at concord carlisle high school outside boston. he is and always has been the kid with one leg. what is hard to do when watching

nico is to believe what you're seeing. >> my disability doesn't define who i am. my disability gives me a challenge everyday. >> reporter: born without a right leg and right hip, nico was raised by parents whose only expectation for their son was that he not expect any special treatment. >> there's no-- you're not taking out the garbage, you're doing everything that every other did in the family is doing. >> reporter: do you take out the garbage? >> oh, yeah, i hate it, though. >> reporter: he was just five years old when he decided that a traditional prosthetic leg was simply holding him back. >> you can go the option of forearm crutch which is make you stick out heinously but they give you this opportunity to be as mobile and as free as i want to be. i can play socker on my crutches. i can run, i can climb kilimanjaro. >> reporter: that's right, he said "kilimanjaro." at 13, nico became the first one-legged climber to reach the top of africa's highest

mountain. he skis, dives, and loves volleyball. then there's wrestling against two-leg odd ponts he finished third in the state in his weight class. but it was this moment on the soccer field that provided a much bigger audience for nico. (cheers and applause) two weeks ago he scored his first varsity goal. with more than a million youtube hit, it might be the most famous high school soccer goal ever. what did your teammates say to you? >> "nice goal." but i don't think it was my teammates thinking "nico's got one leg and he just scored a goal on varsity." it was more like "that was a nice goal." >> reporter: but isn't that exactly what you're looking for out of life? >> exactly. no pity, no differences. i just want to be seen as an equal. >> reporter: nico pads his crutches for safety. the state athletic association ruled he could use them citing the americans with disabilities act. he's quick to push back against

anyone who suggests playing with crutches gives him some kind of petive advantage. >> i suggest they try it and tell me if they think it's an advantage or not and then we can go from there. >> reporter: this past summer nico made his debut for the u.s. amputee soccer team and now wants to take them to their world cup. >> i've got one leg, you get one life. do what you will. and i'm not going to let the hand i was dealt in life dictate what my life is going to be. >> pelley: nico calabria is living proof that sometimes a picture's worth a lot more than a thousand words-- even if it leaves you speechless. jim axelrod, cbs news, concord, massachusetts. >> pelley: and that's the "cbs evening news" for tonight. for all of us at cbs news all around the world, good night. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media

the voice of convicted killer lee malvo, i'm andrea mccarren, i'll have audio excerpts of his chilling interview coming up next. >> reporter: president barge mitt romney and their supporters gear up for wednesday's debate here in denver. i'm danielle nottingham. i'm have the story coming up. >> i'm matt jay blow with a man with deep ties to baseball in washington reflects on the nationals success, that story straight ahead. >> this is 9 news now. a decade after a sniper attacks literallier it rise our area -- terrorize our area one of the men responsible for the violence describes himself as a moner it and shares the one